Foreword by Jaz Ampaw-Farr. Forget data. Forget league tables. Forget the national curriculum. Teachers are the true weather gods in education. The default outlook in schools at present, however, seems to be 'gloom'. Our schools' staff are under relentless pressure, and their ever-increasing workloads can make it easy to forget about the humans they work with. So what can teachers do to bring back the sunny weather and make pupils' school lives more joyous? Gary, Mick and Chris believe that the answer lies in harnessing the power of praise and positivity. In The Decisive Element they offer an uplifting antidote to the anxiety by sharing praise focused techniques that will help teachers and school leaders create an ethos of enthusiasm: one that reduces stress, fuels ambition and builds confidence for staff and pupils alike. Crammed full of sound research, fresh ideas and top tips, this manifesto for positive mindsets celebrates the value of meaningful, impactful praise and shines a light on the myriad ways positivity can be unleashed to spark pupils' motivation and natural curiosity for learning. The book draws upon the authors' vast experience and anecdotal insights to provide sage guidance on how to create a self-sustaining positive climate for learning, and contains a wealth of practical strategies to ramp up the feel-good factor in the school setting so that staff and pupils can feed off each other's enthusiasm. It also flips the script on the stresses and strains of modern schooling by offering a more light-hearted perspective on teachers' and pupils' day-to-day interactions encouraging school staff to be proud of what they do and empowering them to make an even bigger difference in the lives of the young people in their care. Suitable for anyone lucky enough to work in education or with children. The quoted text on the cover of this title has been extracted from Ginott, H. (1972), Teacher and Child: A Book for parents and teachers (NY: Macmillan), p. 15. The Decisive Element has been named the Bronze Winner in the education category of the 2018 INDIES Book of the Year Awards.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

Teacher and child psychologist Haim Ginott came to the 'frightening conclusion' that it was he, as the teacher, who was the decisive element in the classroom: 'It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.' The default setting in British education seems to be 'gloom'. Schools are under relentless pressure and the data-driven league table culture means that we often forget about the humans we work wil. So what can teachers do to make pupils' school lives more joyous? Toward, Malton and Henley believe that the answer lies in harnessing the tools of praise and positivity so that the school setting becomes an environment in which all can thrive - from pupils to cleaners, and from head teacher to teaching assistants.

In this exciting and thought-provoking book, military historian Geoffrey Regan has selected fifty of the most decisive battles of world history. As the author explains, the decisiveness of these battles lies not only in the completeness of victory or defeat for either side, but also in the longer-term impact they have had on the course of history. The scope of the book is majestic. It starts with Salamis, where the Greeks put an end to Persian attempts to overwhelm their country. Other battles of the Ancient World include Zama, where Carthaginian power was finally crushed; Actium, which ushered in the Rome of the emperors; and Adrianople, which first demonstrated the potential of the mounted warrior to defeat the legions of Rome. Moving onto the Medieval World, famous battlessuch as Hastings and the fall of Constantinople - are set beside less well-known but equally crucial encounters such as Lechfeld and Ain Jalut. Then there are the great conflicts of the colonial age, from Plassey to Quebec, and battles such as Saratoga and Sedan that witnessed the birth of nations. From the present century, key engagements of the World Wars - including the Marne, Midway, El Alamein and Stalingrad - are featured, as are more recent conflicts whose reverberations are still very much with us - Dien Bien Phu, the Six Days War, and Operation Desert Storm. Geoffrey Regan not only examines the strategic context and long-term outcome of each battle, but also vividly brings to life the course of the fighting, the commanders and participants, and the significance of innovations in weaponry. Numerous maps help to explain tactics and strategy, while the many illustrations add a further dramatic dimension to this stimulating book.

An eight-time national chess champion and world champion martial artist shares the lessons he has learned from two very different competitive arenas, identifying key principles about learning and performance that readers can apply to their life goals. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

"In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarisation and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Sorensen argues that the region must be analysed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting inter- and intracommunity relations, the emergence of a 'political economy' of conflict, and of informal clientelist arrangements in Serbia and Kosovo and provides a framework for interpreting the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the emergence of ethnic conflict and shadow economies, and the character of western aid and intervention. Western governments and agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. As the author persuasively argues, this discrepancy has exacerbated and cemented problems in the region and provided further complications that are likely to remain for years to come." -- Back cover.

A survey of Euclid's Elements, this text provides an understanding of the classical Greek conception of mathematics and its similarities to modern views as well as its differences. It focuses on philosophical, foundational, and logical questions -- rather than focusing strictly on historical and mathematical issues -- and features several helpful appendixes.

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

#1 New York Times bestseller Featured on The Daily Show and 60 Minutes The acclaimed book that illuminates our world and its politics by revealing why bullshit is more dangerous than lying One of the most prominent features of our world is that there is so much bullshit. Yet we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, how it’s distinct from lying, what functions it serves, and what it means. In his acclaimed bestseller On Bullshit, Harry Frankfurt, who was one of the world’s most influential moral philosophers, explores this important subject, which has become a central problem of politics and our world. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the bullshitter’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that the truth matters. Because of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. Remarkably prescient and insightful, On Bullshit is a small book that explains a great deal about our time.